


I’ve Never Been One For Goodbyes

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6170659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby takes Clarke through the metal doors into a sector of the ark that Clarke’s never entered before, into a new world where hope is not just an empty four letter word, but something that flows through the healers’ hands: a promise to give others a fighting chance and live another day.</p><p>It is the first day, and she is full of hope, in a room, full of looming death.</p><p>Canon Compliant until S3. Focuses on Clarke’s life, a story told from the ark, to the ground, to the sky again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Ark: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will span through Clarke’s entire life. It follows canon, but strays off from S3.

_For all that we could have been,_

_we are Icarus and Atlas again. – p.d._

 

 

*

 

 

She is eleven when her mother starts bringing her to the medical unit.

 

 

*

 

 

“Where are we going?” Clarke asks, kicking her feet back and forth as she sits on her bed, waiting for her mother to get ready.

“To save lives,” her mother tells her, her tone full of humility. Clarke watches as Abby runs her fingers through her hair. She carries herself with grace and diplomacy, from the way that she speaks to the way she acts, and Clarke wishes that she will one day embody them as well.

After Abby finishes putting the pins in her hair, she turns her attention back to Clarke. She crouches down in front of her, touches her daughter’s cheek softly. She gives Clarke a small smile.

“Are you ready?”

Clarke nods. She grabs her mother’s hand as Abby pulls her off the bed. She takes Clarke through the metal doors into a sector of the ark that Clarke’s never entered before, into a new world where hope is not just an empty four letter word, but something that flows through the healers’ hands: a promise to give others a fighting chance and live another day.

It is the first day, and she is full of hope, in a room, full of looming death.

 

 

*

 

 

During her first two year there, she helps her mother with check-ups. Carries around the patients’ medical files for her, her stethoscope—sometimes she’s allowed to clear a patient as healthy on their chart after her mother’s done the full check-up on them.

But, Clarke wants to do _more._

 

 

*

 

Sometimes, she pretends to be her mother, wears her white coat that is much too big on her adolescent body, holding the patient’s medical chart that she has yet to learn how to understand, and comes up to incoming patients. She asks the same questions her mother would ask, runs the routine tests on them as her mother would do. And even though they know a clearing from her is not the same as a clearing from her mother, they play along with her anyway.

One day, she will be able to make a difference on the ark. To help those who cannot help themselves.

One day she won’t have to pretend.

 

 

*

 

 

That day comes 6 months later.

 

 

*

 

 

A young boy enters through the doors, and he is wheezing.

“Where’s Doctor Griffin?” he rasps out.

“She’s right here.”

Her joke falls flat.

“My mother’s in surgery,” she explains more seriously. “I’m Clarke, her daughter.”

“Wells,” he gets out, before coughing again.

“Come here,” Clarke says, grabbing his arm and leading him to an empty patient bed, motioning him to sit down. She grabs the tablet from the table and asks him “Last name?”

“Jaha.”

She looks up at him then. “Son of the Chancellor?”

He nods, violently coughing again.

She gives him a concerned look, before glancing down at the tablet to type up his name for his medical chart. It comes up, full of monthly check-ups with her mother. There are other things she doesn’t understand on it, like the medication her mother’s administered to him for the past three years, but there’s one thing she does get:

“You have a history of lung problems,” she says aloud, mostly to herself.

“I know.”

She looks up at him in apology. “Sorry, I guess you already knew that.”

He gives her a small smile. “It’s alright.”

She takes out her stethoscope, puts it on. “May I?” She asks.

He nods, and she puts the other end on his shirt, pressed against where his left lung would be.

“Breathe in deeply for me.”

He does so, only for his lungs to contract and he coughs again, moving away from her.

“Sor—“ he rasps, before he hacks again into his hands. He tries to start again. “So—“

He coughs and wheezes, coughs and wheezes, his throat becoming more and more hoarse as it continues. The severity of his symptoms becomes alarming, but she tries not to let it show, and thinks. She looks at his chart again, looks around, thinks back to the past patients who’ve come here, how her mother would have solved these symptoms and—

“Stay here,” Clarke tells him, before running to the backroom, where all the medicine is held. She skims through the drawers, until she finds the one she’s looking for, and opens it, and grabs the box inside. “Got it,” she murmurs to herself, and rushes back to Wells.

“Here,” Clarke says, opening the box and hands him over the inhaler.

He looks at her skeptically.

She rolls her eyes at him, offering it again. “It’s what my mother would have prescribed to you. Inhaled steroids.”

He takes it from her.

“Two doses,” she instructs, and he follows what she says.

One. Deep breath in. Out.

Two. Deep breath in. Out.

She keeps a close eye on him, tells him not to talk and let the medicine do its work. He obeys, and she watches him as he breathes, waits to see if his coughing subsides. After ten minutes and Wells has not coughed once, she feels giddy, almost. She feels… _something_ that she can’t quite pinpoint.

He gets up and is about to hand her back the inhaler when Clarke stops him.

“Keep that,” she tells him. “Just in case it happens next time. And I still want you come back to check up with my mom after her surgery.”

He nods, gives her a bashful smile. “Thank you, Doctor Griffin.”

At that, Clarke returns his with a wide grin. “No problem.”

 

 

*

 

 

She figures it out thirty minutes later, what that feeling was, after explaining to her mother what had happened and how she had to decide which medicine to administer to him and seeing her mother look at her in amazement, hugging her tightly.

To help those who cannot help themselves. That feeling is gratitude. It is awe. It is power. It is knowing that she has the capacity to tip the scale of life and death, and choosing to do good.

That is what that feeling is.

 

 


	2. The Ark: Part 2

After the incident with Wells, her mother begins assigning her patients—not critical ones, just the ones that her mother believes she could manage by herself. The sprained ankles. The flu-shots. Sometimes she’s even assigned the broken arm.

But the one change that Clarke's most grateful for is that her mother allows her to do what she couldn’t do before:

Assist her in surgeries.

 

 

*

 

 

The first time she’s scheduled to do a surgery with her mother, she lasts a whole 30 minutes before she excusing herself from the room, moments away from vomiting.

 

 

*

 

 

She makes it to the trashcan before throwing up.

 

 

*

 

 

“You know, Clarke,” her mother tells her, walking out of the operating room an hour later. “You can’t be a doctor if you can’t stand being in there for more than thirty.”

Abby hovers over her as Clarke’s slumping over the bin, fearing that she’ll heave again.

It’s not the act of cutting someone open that unsettles her. It’s the blood. The formaldehyde. The smell of burning flesh. The smell of—

“It smells like death, mom,” she groans, wiping her mouth.

Abby rests a hand on her shoulder comfortingly, before squeezing once, and letting go.

“It comes with the job,” her mother tells her, her tone almost distant. “The sooner you understand that, the better.”

Clarke doesn’t understand what her mother means then, too preoccupied not to upchuck the rest of her lunch. All she wants is to rid the bile taste from her mouth and the putrid smell from her memory.

She groans again, hopes the waves of nausea will go away before it’s time for dinner.

 

 

*

 

 

She gets better with it, over the next few surgeries. She tells herself not to eat before them, breathes through her mouth when she enters the operating room. At worst, she’s nauseous until she leaves the room. At best, she makes it through the surgery with the contents of her stomach in tact. That’s not to say she still doesn’t have to resist the urge to vomit right after she leaves the operating room, but it’s bearable.

As her mother says, it comes with the job: the smell of death.

 

 

*

 

 

It turns out, that’s not what her mother meant, when she’d cautioned her about it.

It takes a patient for her to realize this:

 

 

*

 

 

Two doctors run through the doors, pushing a crash cart.

“Doctor Griffin!”

Her mother, alarmed, rushes to them. Clarke follows closely behind her. As her mother asks them what happened, how she fell ill, Clarke tries to assess the young girl’s vitals. She’s breathing, but her body’s cold, pale. Clarke moves to grab one of the oxygen masks to put on the patient when one of the doctors stop her.

“Hey!” Clarke says defensively, pulls her arm away from his grip. “I’m trying to help. What’s your problem?”

He doesn’t let her go. He looks at Abby, then glances his eyes at Clarke for a quick moment, to signal to Abby what they cannot say aloud. While Clarke doesn’t understand what they mean by that, apparently Abby does, because she tells her:

“Clarke, could you step outside for a moment?”

Clarke frowns in confusion, feeling slightly betrayed.

“I thought I was here to help you, mom.”

Abby looks at her then, and with a gentle tone, says, “This one requires years of experience, honey.” It only makes Clarke frown harder at her words, just as she feels the grip on her wrist loosen and fall away. “You’ll get there soon.”

She stares at everyone for a moment, all of whom looking back at her, waiting for her to leave.

“Fine,” Clarke bites petulantly, drops the oxygen mask back to the bin, and stomps out of the room, spiteful that she’s not allowed to take part on this case.

But she doesn’t leave the medical unit. Her mother may have told her to leave the room, but she didn’t say that she couldn’t listen in. So when the doors close behind her, she leans her ear close to it, tries her best to hear the conversation on the other side.

“Is she…?” Her mother trails off.

“Yes. She’s one of the few who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” she hears one of the doctors say.

“I see.” Her mother.

Silence.

“What’s our course of action, Doctor Griffin?”

“We do what we’ve always done. Oxygen therapy.”

“But Chancellor Jaha told us to ration the oxygen,” the doctor informs her. “To expend that resource only when absolutely neces—“

“John _,”_ her mother chastises.

“I agree with John on this one, Doctor Griffin,” the other doctor jumps in. “Why waste our oxygen on someone who has a disease we can’t cure? We need it for those who actually—”

“ _Enough_ ,” her mothers shouts at them. “Every life on this ark is necessary. Or have you two forgotten about that?”

Silence.

“The promise we took as doctors. If we have the resources, we will do what we can.” A pause. “Is that clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” the two men say.

“You give her the amount of oxygen she’s allotted. No less.”

Clarke hears closing footsteps come towards the door and she quickly dashes to the corner. The doors open, and she peaks her head out. It’s her mom, her face marred with tension and pensiveness. She closes her eyes and heaves a deep sigh. When she opens them, she straightens her posture, and starts walking towards the other hallway.

Clarke leans her back against the wall, and for the next hour, waits patiently for the other two doctors to leave the room to sneak back in.

 

 

*

 

 

By the time Clarke comes back in the room, they’ve moved her to the operating area, but the patient is still unconscious. She grabs the medical chart from the side of the bed and looks through her medical history, to find what her mother and the others didn’t want her to not know. 

Rachel Stones. 16. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Phosphodiestrease-4 inhibitors. Ineffective. Corticosteroids. Ineffective. The list goes on and on, of all the medication given to her, all the treatments done to her, and the success rate of them all: zero. All but one. Oxygen therapy hasn’t been written off yet, and it’s currently marked as current treatment.

She puts the chart back on the table, and crouches down to check the oxygen levels on her tank. It’s out.

The heart monitor starts beeping erratically, and Clarke immediately stands up. Her eyes move from the patient’s face, to her body, to the machine. She’s going into sudden cardiac arrest. The cogs in Clarke’s brain run on autopilot, the adrenaline in her blood rushing through her skin as she pushes the emergency button to page all the doctors. She pushes the defibrillator cart towards the patient, and quickly attaches the electrode pads onto the patient’s chest. Still, the heart monitor continues to beep erratically and Clarke begins to panic. She looks up at the door, and there’s no one heading her way. She looks back down at Rachel as the machine drones rapidly.

There are no doctors in the room. Her mother’s never let her done this part of the procedure before, and she’s afraid that if she screws up, she will be the reason that Rachel dies. But if Clarke does nothing, Rachel will die too. She tries to think, tries to decide what to do as the seconds tick by. After a moment, she gets in motion. She chooses to do this:

She applies the conducting gel onto the paddles and sets the defibrillator to 200. She places them against patient’s chest and charges.

No change.

She increases the power to 250, and charges again.

No change.

To 275. No change. To 300. No change, and then—

It stops altogether. Rachel loses her pulse.

“No,” Clarke whispers to herself, fear running down her spine. She sets the paddles down, and starts CPR. She presses the heel of her hand against her chest, one hand on top of the other, and begins the chest compressions.

“Don’t die on me, Rachel,” Clarke pleas, counting the compressions in her head until she gets to 30. She tilts Rachel’s head back, and gives her mouth-to-mouth.

Still, no change. She repeats, and repeats, and repeats, but nothing’s _happening_ but still she keeps trying. She has to. Rachel can’t die, she has to live, she has to—

“Clarke.”

Clarke looks up, not stopping her chest compressions. 

It’s Doctor John, and relief crashes over her. She’s not alone in this anymore. Rachel still has a chance.

“Doctor John, you’re here,” she says out of breath, keeping up with her compressions. She looks back down at Rachel. “Her heart went in cardiac arrest and I used the defibrillator. It flatlined shortly after. She’s been down for five minutes, and I’ve been doing CPR on her since then. How would you—" 

“Clarke,” Doctor John says again, cutting her off. “There’s nothing else we can do.”

She looks at him then, her eyes full of confusion. “What do you mean? You haven’t even looked at her yet. You have even _tried—_ “

“There’s nothing left for us to do,” Doctor John repeats. He walks over to her, puts his hand over her arm, trying to get her to stop her compressions. “Even if we resuscitated her, we wouldn’t have enough oxygen to supplement her.”

Clarke smacks his hand away from hers and faces him. “We have a room full of oxygen tanks,” she tells him, pointing to the backroom. Her voice is brimming with anger then, and she does nothing to hide her outrage. “We can save her if you—“

“We’ve already given her the amount of oxygen she’s allowed to have,” Doctor John tries to explain again, now getting impatient. “Any more would be against Chancellor Jaha’s orders.” He gives her a pointed look then, almost challengingly. “Would you risk getting floated to save her?”

Clarke looks at him in the eye, her jaw clenched, but doesn’t answer.

“And even if we did make an exception of her and save her,” he goads, “what then? Make an exception of them all? Deplete our resources faster than we can afford?” He tsks at Clarke, shaking his head almost patronizingly, and the anger raging in Clarke burns further. She clenches her fists, her fingernails digging into her palms.

“Save our entire people, or save one. _That_ is what we always must decide, Clarke,” he emphasizes.

Clarke stands in place, staring at the floor as Doctor John moves around her. He reaches over to the heart monitor and unplugs it. The room goes quiet.

“Now tell me, what would you have chosen, given those options?”

Maybe it was the way that he said it, condescending and haughty, or the way he’d unceremoniously unplugged Rachel’s heart monitor, as though her life meant nothing. Maybe it was the way he’d let Rachel die when he had ample time to save her, but chose not to. Or maybe, it was all these things.

Regardless, she finally looks back up at him, stares at him in the eyes defiantly and grits:

“I would have done what any good doctor would have done and choose _both.”_

She peels the electrode pads off her patient with care, before throwing them roughly at his face. “Time of death, 8:53 p.m.”

She storms out of the room before Doctor John can say anything else.

 

 

*

 

Her cheeks are wet as she makes her way through the hallways and to her room. She tries to wipe them away, but still, her vision is blurry from the tears.

It's the first time in months that she leaves the operating room feeling nauseous, and this time, it’s for a completely different reason.

 

 

 


End file.
